Room 203, January 7, 4:23 AM

[kitchen_maid]

Room 203 is absolutely spotless.

Everything is exactly where it should be, set there just so, Amy has finished the dress she started making last week, and every bit of mending that either her own or Anne's clothes needed has been done. Anne's books are perfectly flush along the shelf, the thread in Amy's sewing box has been organized by color. There is not a bit of dust or a spec of dirt or a crumb of anything anywhere.

Amy has run out of things to do.

Amy has been out of her room only once in the past two days, and only because she ran out of tea.

Amy has a letter, that Bar gave her along with the tea leaves, and which Amy has read until she has memorized it, with its (perhaps unintentional) mute reproach in the last line.

Amy has not slept.

Amy is in the window seat, staring at the lake without really seeing it.

There is a ledger on the shelf by her bed, next to her prayer book.

There is a chair under her doorknob.

There is no sign of a cloak anywhere in the room.

Comments

[kitchen_maid]

She gets up, takes the ledger from the shelf, comes back over and sits down on the bed next to him.

"This is yours, I believe," she says, handing it to him.

It's only a little damaged from having been left in the snow, and Amy has cleaned and repaired it as best she can.

[the_seafarer]

He take sit, silently, and passes his hand lightly over the cover.

(belonging to Caspian, gifted of Susan Allgood)

"Aye," he says, and his voice is a little hoarse, but he does not bother to clear it.

"So it is. I--I must have dropped it."

He swallows.

"Thank you, Amy."

[kitchen_maid]

"You're welcome. I know it's important."

[the_seafarer]

"It is, aye."

He flips through the pages, and though his expression does not change, he slows slightly where the handwriting is a bit finer, a little lighter, rather than going over the notes in his firm, dark hand.

"Very important."

[kitchen_maid]

"Susan would understand," she says, quietly.

[the_seafarer]

(the moon was pink, Susan said)

His hands pause in their work, and the ledger lies momentarily open.

KILLER; a miniature pink--

Before it is shut once again.

"Aye, she would have. Susan--she was--she told me once, of her time in Mejis, how a witch had enchanted her, made her do things she'd never have done otherwise. And how she was punished for such."

(burned me instead)

[kitchen_maid]

Amy reaches out to take his hand, a little tentatively it must be admitted.

"I didn't know that," she says, quietly. "I just . . . know she would understand."

[the_seafarer]

He shrugs.

"I didn't know for a long time--until Rilian came back. I didn't know what was the matter with him, and Susan suggested it may have been enchantment. As it was, of course."

He turns the ledger over in his hands, remembering.

"She thought it might help if she told me her own story. And it did, in the end."

[kitchen_maid]

"Susan was good at knowing what to do, and what to say."

Taking Caspian sailing had been Susan's idea, after all.

[the_seafarer]

"Aye."


Caspian is silent for a moment, before putting the ledger to one side.

"Susan was a...a dear friend. I know you miss her as much as I, Amy. And I'm terribly glad that you and she were able to meet, and be such good friends."

[kitchen_maid]

"I am, too," says Amy, one hand closing around her necklace and holding it for a moment, falling silent.

[the_seafarer]

His eyes are caught by the necklace, and he looks curious.

"Was that Susan's, then?"

[kitchen_maid]

Amy nods, and holds it out for him to see. It's long enough that she doesn't have to take it off, the way she does her locked.

"She left it for me."

[the_seafarer]

He takes it delicately, and looks at it, his fingers moving over it carefully.

(gifted of Susan Allgood)

"It's a marvelous gift," he says, laying it carefully back down.

[kitchen_maid]

Amy smiles.

"It was kind of her to think of me, and I've been very glad to have it."

Amy wears it all the time.

[the_seafarer]

He nods.

"She'd be happy to see you like it so much, I think," he tells her.

"When we see her again, someday, we'll tell her so."

[kitchen_maid]

"Of course we will," says Amy, matter of factly. "But I somehow think she already knows."

[the_seafarer]

"I think mayhap you're right," Caspian agrees.

It's the End of the Universe, after all. Anything is possible.